College football players don't get paid, in part on the theory that they're really mere students participating in a little recreational athletics and not at all the main labor force for a multi-million dollar industry. But how do the universities participating in the bowl games this holiday season actually stack up in terms of educating football players? Our partners at the New America Foundation devised this interactive infographic that helps you see how all the top 25 BCS teams stack up academically. Player often graduate at far lower rates than regular students at their schools, and black players' graduation rates lag behind those of their white teammates. TCU, for example, climbs to third in the Academic BCS rankings, while Alambama and LSU drop to fifth and 13th, respectively. (No. 1 in the Academic BCS? Penn State.)
At first I thought it was a ranking of all the bowl teams, but then I saw it was the Top 25. No wonder Ohio State and Notre Dame weren't in there. Joe Pa may have grossly mishandled the Jerry Sandusky case, but his academic BCS was number 1. I guess that might reflect a low overall graduation rate at a school that is consistently in the Top 10 party school rankings.
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